


Wishing For Right Now

by likehandlingroses



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, New Year's Day, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: When Downton Abbey rings in the year 1920, Thomas isn't sure he'll like the next decade any better than the last. Things don't change on a whim...and it seems nothing in the world will ever change in his favor.The next ten years uncover just how right--and wrong--he is.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Anna Bates, Thomas Barrow & Phyllis Baxter, Thomas Barrow & Sybbie Branson, Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 30
Kudos: 232





	Wishing For Right Now

**January 1, 1920**

1920\. The start of a new decade—whatever that was supposed to mean. The servants’ hall buzzed with a renewed energy, the new year and the new decade invoked wherever Thomas turned his ear.

Hadn’t the last ten years spooked them into looking on the occasion with some anxiety? 

Thomas sulked in the corner, cigarette in hand, his drink swallowed down before anyone could wish him well (or _not_ , as Thomas suspected would be the case). Not for the first time, and he supposed not for the last. 

Some things— _most_ things—didn’t change. And they certainly didn’t change at the beck and call of the calendar year.

“Cheer up, then,” Miss O’Brien said, still nursing her glass of wine as she sidled up beside him. “His Lordship’ll come ‘round, and in the meantime, you have a job. That’s more than many can say.”

Thomas crossed his left arm tighter across his chest. 

“Oh, I’m supposed to be grateful, am I?” he grumbled. “Ten years, nothing to show for it?” 

A _footman_. In 1920...a whole war gone by—and him helping to run the whole house during it—and in Mr. Carson and Lord Grantham’s eyes, he was still a boy who took things that weren’t his.

Perhaps it’d give them peace of mind if he told them wine just didn’t help him get to sleep the same way, ever since his trip to France...

“You made some missteps early on, that’s all,” Miss O’Brien murmured. As if she had nothing to do with it…

Sometimes Thomas wondered if she liked having him just beneath her. And, more and more since coming back from the front, he wondered if she was half as clever as she pretended. 

No one downstairs liked her any better than they liked him...and most of them upstairs liked her less. What would have happened if he’d put his lot in with anyone else, right at the start? 

_Who would have had me?_

That was the trouble, wasn’t it? That was always the trouble with him. 

“Happy New Year, then,” he said. Begrudging, to the only person who might wish it back. 

She did, before saying: 

“Be patient. Your time’ll come.”

Thomas sighed. 

“Right.”

He wasn’t going to hold his breath. 

* * *

**January 1, 1921**

Thomas tapped out his cigarette on the work bench before acknowledging Anna’s presence. She said something about how it was too cold to be outside, when what she really meant was to ask why he hadn’t turned up for toasts and all the rest. 

As if she couldn’t guess. 

“Surprised you’re still here…” he said, turning in his seat to face her, hand in his front pocket, reaching for another cigarette. “I’d want to get away, if it were me. Make a quiet night of it in my new place.”

Anna shrugged, arms crossed against her chest. “We have enough of those. Tonight’s for celebrating, and we’re lucky to have people here to celebrate with.”

Thomas’s mouth twisted into something that was almost a smile. 

“Must be nice.” He inhaled, watching Anna’s brow raise, a kind of panic flitting across her eyes. “Everything right there—take what you like, put down what you’d rather save for later...it’ll all be right there when you want it. Charmed, isn’t it?”

Anna stepped forward, arms crossed still tighter. And if she was so cold, why didn’t she just go inside and leave him be?

“You know it’s not been as simple as that.”

As though any other convicted murderer could have hoped for the sunny outcome Mr. Bates had been handed. Whether he deserved it or not.

“Hasn’t it?”

Anna looked down at the ground. “I know this year has been difficult for you—”

“—don’t feel sorry for me,” Thomas interrupted. Wasn’t he allowed to have any dignity at all? “I’m lucky, too, aren’t I? Still have a job. A better one than I started the year with, in fact. Two promotions in the space of twelve months—that’s something.”

He took a drag on his cigarette, eyes pinned just to the left of Anna’s shoulder. He could almost make out her knit brow on the edges of his stare. 

“And I don’t have to worry about which friends to trust,” he continued. “Because I’ve learned the answer’s what I always suspected—you can’t trust anyone.”

“Not even the people who protected you?”

He supposed she meant her husband...

“I don’t want to be protected,” he sniped. As if that were some great gift...to be always cowering, in need of a hand that might or might not come, according to the owner’s fancy. 

He knew the score—if it had been Mr. Carson who wanted him out, Lady Mary who’d asked that he be dismissed...he wouldn’t have stood a chance. 

But it had been Miss O’Brien and Carson’s least favorite footman since Thomas himself...so it had been all right. 

Lucky him...

“I want what you have,” he said, answering the question before Anna could ask it, tossing the bitter words in the cold air and watching them break apart into useless shards of resentment. 

“And that’ll never happen.” His voice shook as he shrugged. “So.” 

She almost stepped forward again. 

“Thomas.”

He shook his head, not daring to look at her again. Not when he felt so small. 

“Go inside if you’re cold.”

She did, leaving Thomas to finish his cigarette in peace. 

* * *

  
  


**January 1, 1922**

Nanny Perkins had asked off yet again for New Year’s Day...well, she’d _told_ Her Ladyship she was taking the day, which she must have thought amounted to the same thing.

It didn’t, and she’d find it out, as soon as they could have a replacement lined up. 

In the meantime, the nursery was shorthanded, and the wet nurse didn’t have time for Miss Sybbie’s grabs for attention. She was almost a proper toddler, now, which made her far more interesting (and far less needy) than Master George. 

She wasn’t taking the adjustment well, especially with Nanny gone away. 

“I know,” Thomas assured her as she fussed over something Thomas couldn’t quite make out (something to do with her hair...or maybe her nose? Her frantic gesturing left plenty up for interpretation). 

“Mrs. Harding will be over here in just a minute,” he promised. “It’s only that Master George needs more help than you. He’s just like you when you were tiny, isn’t he?”

“No!” Sybbie whined, plopping down on the floor and kicking her feet out in front of her. She pounded the ground with her heels half-heartedly, as if she’d already given up the chase before it had really started. She fixed Thomas with a pointed stare through wide eyes. 

She knew what would come of her screaming, and it wouldn’t be much. But she had the advantage when it came to Mr. Barrow, and she knew it. 

Clever girl. 

“No?” Thomas knelt down beside her, taking one of her feet in hand and shaking it. “No?”

She giggled, leaning forward to grab his hand in both her own, using his arm to pull herself up on her feet. 

“Now, you don’t fool me…” he laughed. “You want some attention, that’s all…”

He ran a hand through her curls. She was getting so big and strong...he sounded like all the mothers who cooed at their babies in church, but it was true. 

Besides, Miss Sybbie had been small and without a mother, and that meant there really _was_ something to make a _to-do_ about as she grew up. 

She was a tough little thing, and perhaps it was that which made Thomas fonder of her than he liked to admit. 

“What do you think, Miss Sybbie?” he asked as she played with the buttons on his right sleeve. “Is 1922 going to be a good year? Is it going to fix everything, make the world new and exciting again? Hm?”

She stared at him, unblinking, laughing as he tilted his head in mock curiosity. 

“No!” she said with a wide grin.

“No, I don’t think so, either,” he said. “But we’ll get on, won’t we?”

She kissed his hand in reply. 

* * *

**January 1, 1923**

Miss Baxter looked behind her before entering the boot room. Thomas pretended to inspect the heel of the nearest shoe. 

“You cleared out quickly,” she said, tone dripping with knowledge Thomas would rather she didn’t have. 

He was hiding from the festivities—as he usually did—and she knew it. That was the sort of knowledge that would make keeping her on _his_ side more difficult than ever…

He’d been losing her since the day she arrived and realized the truth of his position. It hurt more than he’d like to admit.

He’d hoped avoiding a lone corner of the servants’ hall would keep her from noticing just how bleak it all was, but she’d sniffed it out anyway, and now he was well and truly stuck. 

“I don’t get much from it all…” he said lightly, picking up the boot (one of Lady Edith’s, he thought). 

She stared at him, unconvinced. 

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He glared at her, eyes narrowed, as he lifted his chin. 

“Any news for me, Miss Baxter?” he sneered. Her lips tightened, eyes darting to the side table.

They both jumped as Jimmy poked his head in. 

“Mr. Barrow!” He pushed past Miss Baxter, a glass of wine in one hand, his other hand making a fist, which he opened proudly upon reaching Thomas’s side. It held a handful of coins. 

“Happy New Year!” he said, holding it out to him. “For the postage you lent. Won it off of Madge, just now. She’s _rubbish_ at cards.”

He meant well by offering it, but Thomas felt his face flush all the same. 

“I told you, I didn’t mind paying,” he murmured. He didn’t dare call it a gift, or anything like it. That sort of thing made Jimmy skittish.

And why wouldn’t it, after what happened? 

“But _I_ mind it,” he said. Perhaps he realized how it sounded, or noticed how Thomas winced, for he amended his tone before speaking again. Softer, eyes dialed in on Thomas’s left ear lobe. 

“I can pay my own way, Thomas.” 

“Right.” Thomas pocketed the coins. “Thank you, then, Jimmy.”

He swallowed back his embarrassment, the sensation that he’d never _quite_ have what he wanted, even in a friend. 

It was like his taking the coins broke some sort of spell over Jimmy—that in the transaction’s completion, he’d been granted permission to smile more freely, to look Thomas in the eye. 

“I’ll win more anyway, before the night’s over,” he said with a grin. “Should come and watch…”

Thomas muttered that he might, just.

That was enough for Jimmy, who hurried back out the doorway, throwing back his glass and finishing it off. 

Miss Baxter’s eyes followed him out the door before turning back to Thomas. She always looked a little bit sad, but there was something dreadful about the pathetic look she gave him as their eyes met. 

“What?” he snapped. 

She shook her head, the sadness deepening. 

“Nothing.”

* * *

**January 1, 1924**

The pub was nearly empty. Most people in Ripon spent New Year’s Day somewhere else, then…

Thomas cleared his throat, watching his sister’s hands close against her glass. 

“Don’t get up here much,” she murmured. As if Thomas didn’t know. As if it were an accident he hadn’t seen her in above ten years. 

“No,” he muttered. “Why would you?”

“Well, Alice lives up here. I try and see her, when I can.”

So they weren’t even pretending...wonderful. 

“Right.”

“You remember Alice?” Maggie said with a smile. “That curly hair?”

Thomas sighed. “I remember.”

She’d pulled on Maggie’s braid one too many times, and Thomas had kicked her in the shins for it. 

That was the day he’d been taught never to fight a girl...and the day he _learned_ never to fight someone two heads taller than you. You got nothing for it but a split lip...

“She still has her curls,” Maggie said, her eyes softening in a way that suggested she remembered those times more fondly than he did. “Plus three little ones.”

She had some nerve…

“That’s one less than you have. If I remember right,” he said slowly, letting the words heave across the table. If she thought for one moment it was all forgotten, that he’d taken being banned from her home lying down...

“Thomas, I’ve told you…if it were up to me.”

She stopped, as if he’d generously fill in the rest and forgive her for—at best—having no spine, no principles at all. 

“If it were up to you, _what_?” He leaned forward in his seat. “You’d bring them ‘round? Let me come and visit?”

She blinked. “Dunno.”

He sat back with a sneer. “Then don’t say stupid things like you do.”

“Thomas—”

“—I knew it was a mistake, using my time off on _you_ …talking about Alice Higgins and her curly hair...is there anything else no one on earth fucking cares about you’d like to bring up, or are we done here?”

She stiffened, straightening to her full height in her chair. 

“You haven’t changed one bit,” she said. “And you wonder why no one asks you home.”

“I haven’t asked to come home!” he snarled. “Not once. And _you’re_ the one who wrote me to meet you up here—”

“—because Phyllis told me it might help, but you’re clearly beyond reasoning with—”

Thomas wasn’t quite sure how he got back to Downton, what he’d said to his sister before leaving. The shock of Miss Baxter’s meddling had overtaken his senses. 

That sneak had pretended to be surprised when Maggie had written. Wished him luck and everything...when all the while, she’d set it up for herself. 

A good long talk with his dear older sister, that’s what’d cure him...that’s all he needed to set him straight. 

She’d always been shoving in where she wasn’t needed...always been conveniently missing when she _was_...

“I know what you did,” he hissed, cornering her in the hallway. “Telling on me to her.” 

Miss Baxter paled, but met his eyes. 

“She asked me how you were—”

“—and you probably wrote her pages...because she’s your _good friend_ , isn’t she?” He was shaking—had he ever been so angry with someone before? “Even though _she’s_ not the one who got you a job—a good job, in a good house, with all the information you needed to make a good impression—”

“—except for the fact that everyone in this house thinks you’re a snake,” Miss Baxter interrupted, taking a step forward. She looked terrified, but there was a fury behind her eyes as well. “And you _getting me the job_ means everyone looks sideways at me as well. Which isn’t exactly the fresh start you’d promised, _Mr. Barrow_.”

“And I’ll bet you told her that.” He took a breath, rolling his shoulders back, affecting a smile. “She’ll be grateful. It gives her a tidy excuse not to let me near her family for the _next_ ten years as well.”

“Can you blame her, when you carry on as you do?” Miss Baxter retorted.

The words tore through him, and she saw it happen. He saw the fire in her eyes die down, cool into that awful, bottomless sadness that he hated more than anything. 

“You’re right,” he muttered bitterly, dropping his gaze. “Of course, you’re right. You know everything about it, don’t you? Clever you...”

He turned abruptly, feeling so sick to his stomach he wasn’t sure he’d make it up the stairs. 

“I’m sorry if you’re not happy with how things have turned out between you and Maggie.” She almost sounded like she meant it. “But I—”

“—don’t have anything to do with it?” he snapped, not turning around. “Then act like it, Miss Baxter.”

* * *

**January 1, 1925**

Miss Sybbie stood on her toes, staring at the plate of biscuits left over from the servants’ tea. She’d already had one, and Thomas supposed she was deciding whether (and when) to ask for another. 

“Have you ever gone all the way across the ocean, Mr. Barrow?” she finally said, turning away from the treats. She was playing a longer game, then...

“I have, once,” Thomas replied, over the hum of Miss Baxter’s sewing machine. “Do you remember when His Lordship went to New York?”

“Oh, yes! I remember...that was when I was _this_ tall…” She held up her hand to the height of the chair’s armrest. “Did Miss Baxter go to America?”

“I don’t know—Miss Baxter?” Thomas asked, as Miss Sybbie shuffled to the other side of his chair to get a better look at her. 

Baxter looked up, puzzled. She hadn’t heard the question. 

“Have you ever been to America?” he asked, inclining his head towards Miss Sybbie. 

She smiled at them both, eyes landing on Sybbie. 

“No, though I almost did, once,” she said. “But the family changed their plans, and we went to Rome instead.”

Thomas leaned back in his seat. “You never told me you’d gone to Rome…”

“You never asked,” she said softly as she took the garment from the sewing machine, a smile playing on her face. Thomas shook his head, looking down at Miss Sybbie. 

“Miss Baxter’s been teasing me since I was _this_ tall.” He held his hand out just under Sybbie’s bangs. She laughed, even as Miss Baxter protested that it wasn’t true. 

Sybbie looked between them, as if waiting for one of them to admit they were wrong. She was young, yet, to understand the joke. They exchanged a smile before Thomas leaned down towards her with a shake of his head. 

“We remember differently, that’s all…” he explained, before turning the conversation back around to where it had started. 

“You’ll like America. It’ll be an adventure.”

Which he hoped was true, though it seemed mad to him that Mr. Branson would so easily toss away the only world Miss Sybbie had ever known. Baxter said she was sure it _wasn’t_ an easy decision. Generous of her...but Thomas knew Branson. He never thought about anything as long as he should...ten to one, he’d come back with his tail between his legs before the year was out. 

“Will you come visit me?” Sybbie asked, leaning on his arm, staring up at him expectantly.

Thomas swallowed. He’d tried not to think of what it would mean when Miss Sybbie left. How different the whole house would be, without her cheering it all up.

Of course, there was Master George and Miss Marigold, and he was fond of them as well…

But he’d loved Sybbie first, before he’d known he could do it, and that would always mean more. 

“You never know…” he said with a plastered on grin. “I might come stay in Boston myself. And I’m sure you’ll come back here for a visit or two, in time.”

Sybbie bounced on her toes. “At Christmas! _Next_ Christmas, I’ll bet!”

He took her hand and squeezed. “I’ll bet you’re right…”

She stared at him for almost precisely five seconds before making her move: 

“Can I have _one_ more biscuit, Mr. Barrow?”

She chose her moment well. The biscuit was hers—Mr. Barrow was even the sort to let her pick which one she liked best. She took her time about it, finally choosing one that wasn’t the biggest, but seemed to have the roundest, prettiest edges. 

As she broke off a piece to give to him, Thomas caught Miss Baxter grinning at them. 

“What?” he said with a smile. 

She shook her head. 

“Nothing.” 

Fondly, as if what she wanted to say would sound too precious for words. 

Thomas wondered if things might finally have settled into a life worth having…

He’d waited long enough.

* * *

**December 31, 1925**

Baxter met him at the bottom of the stairs, beaming. 

“I’m so pleased you’re staying for tonight!” she said, taking his hand. “It’ll be such a treat, having you here, like old times.”

As if he’d really ever _done_ New Year’s Eve...Thomas looked behind him before beckoning her off to the side. 

“Then you’ll be glad of what they told me upstairs…” he murmured. 

Her eyes widened. “What is it?”

In another time, he’d have wondered if she’d find the news as wonderful as he wanted her to...and then he’d have pretended that he didn’t want her to find it wonderful at all. 

But they were well past that, and if Thomas could be sure anyone in the house would be glad of him coming back, it was her. 

“Mr. Carson’s retiring, and they’ve asked me to be butler.”

Sure enough, the news hit just the mark he wanted. He didn’t think anyone in the world had looked as pleased for him about anything. 

“You must be so relieved,” she said. “I know Sir Mark’s wasn’t the place for you.”

An understatement if there ever was one…

“No, it wasn’t,” he muttered. 

“But you kept your chin up all the same, and it’s worked out as it should.” She took his hand again, squeezing it tight. “Now you can come back and know that it’s because you’re needed and wanted, right here.”

Thomas bit back his smile. 

“By _His Lordship_ , maybe. We’ll see how everyone else takes it,” he said, his voice low. Baxter fell back on her heels, brow raised at the damper he was putting on it all.

“You’re trying not to be pleased, aren’t you?” she said in disbelief. “Then you should know: I’m going to make it difficult for you.”

“Because you’re determined to be right, whether I like it or not?” he teased. 

“Because I’m _happy_ you’ll be here with us,” she said, beckoning him through to the servants’ hall. 

Thomas didn’t try and stop the grin forming on his face, or the bubbling start of excitement growing in his stomach. 

“Go on, then…”

* * *

**December 31, 1926**

  
  


Thomas bounced Johnnie on his knee. 

“Are you _quite_ sure you’re ready to be a whole year old?” he asked. “That’s when people start expecting things...walking and talking and all...it never goes back.”

Johnnie squealed something enthusiastic and incomprehensible, which Thomas answered with an “oh, of course…I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

Anna folded up her stitching, smiling at them. 

“He’s so funny, how he babbles,” she said. “And I swear, he does it the most with you.”

“Well, that says something about the quality of my conversation, doesn’t it?” Thomas joked. 

He handed Johnnie over, trying not to feel too jealous as the boy wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck, laying his head on her shoulder. 

He was lucky enough to have the trust that he did...that Anna (and Mr. Bates, which was _really_ something) thought him a worthy companion for their son, from time to time. His own family wouldn’t give him such trust, but the Bateses had, without a second thought. 

He wondered if they knew what it meant to him. 

“I just want him to say ‘Mummy’ on purpose…” Anna said, running a comforting hand across Johnnie’s back. “Just one time where I know he really _means_ it. That’s one of my three wishes for the year.”

Thomas frowned. “Three wishes?”

“Oh, I’ve never told you…” Anna sat down next to him. Johnnie shifted his head so he was facing Thomas. He was fighting sleep, his eyes opening halfway before slipping shut again, only to open more fiercely a few moments later. “When I was little, my sister and I made up a game, where you make three wishes for New Year’s. Then everyone says what they wished for. It’s fun.”

If she said so. 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to say wishes or they wouldn’t come true.”

“That’s birthdays,” Anna explained, smiling at Thomas’s look of incredulity. “See, your birthday is _your_ day, so your wish is just for you. But New Year’s is a new start for everyone, so the rules are different.”

“You _did_ tell me this, once.” An age ago, back when they were younger than they’d known, and Thomas had liked Anna too much to believe she’d ever want much to do with him. 

Which meant he’d acted as if he didn’t think much of her at all...a charade that probably wouldn’t have fooled Anna Bates, but had pretty well fooled Anna Smith. 

And the circles they’d spun ever since...finally stopping somewhere they could see one another. Where they were even friends, in a way. 

“I’m sure you played right along…” she said with a laugh. As if that time didn’t frighten her the way it still sometimes frightened Thomas. 

“What are your other two wishes?” he asked, eager to put some distance between them and the past. 

“That we can make real plans for the future. And that everyone is happy and healthy—I always wish that.”

Of course she did...

“And that hasn’t turned you off of the game?” he quipped. Anna scoffed, though she took it for the well-meaning joke it had been meant as. 

“What are your three, then?” she asked. “And don’t say you don’t have any—I know it’s not true.”

He considered the question. He still wasn’t sure what the point of it all was...but Anna had offered him a go at trying it out, and he’d learned not to reject such offers without good reason. 

“I’d like to get a wireless for downstairs,” he replied. “And...I suppose I’d like if it the budget could stretch to replace the oldest tea set—I’m tired of hearing apologies for someone chipping it again. Are we all supposed to wish that everyone’s happy and all the rest? That’s three, then.”

He thought he’d done rather well, for being on the spot, but Anna looked less than impressed.

“A new tea set and a wireless?” she said...and when she listed it out, it _did_ sound pathetic. 

“What should I ask for, then?” he said, a bite creeping into his voice. 

“You’re not _asking_ ,” Anna said. “You’re wishing. And it might not come true, but now you’ve promised to wish for it. To look for it in the coming year, and maybe that’ll help it turn up.”

“Right.” 

This game was starting to sound like yet another reminder that Thomas’s life would never be like other people’s. That his ceiling was lower, leaving him crouched and uncomfortable. And everyone kept stretching their arms up and asking him to look at the sky with them…

They meant well, but he wished they’d stop it. 

“You don’t have to tell me what they are,” Anna said, her voice soft. She at least tried to understand—Thomas would always be grateful to her for it. “I made the same wish for years, and it didn’t come true until last year.” 

She smiled down at Johnnie. “And the last time or two I made it, I kept it such a secret. But let yourself wish it, Mr. Barrow. It’ll help.”

He wasn’t convinced she was right...but he supposed he couldn’t say she was wrong before trying. 

“How can I argue with results?” he said, glad that the comment made her smile—distracted her, maybe, from feeling sorry for him. 

“But I do still want the wireless, mind you…”

 _And something else,_ he allowed himself to admit. _Someone else._

Someone who understood, someone who could fit beside him in the cramped space they’d been given. 

If he could just have that, he would never ask for anything again. 

* * *

**December 31, 1927**

“Why _three_?”

Thomas could hear Richard’s frown over the phone. 

“That’s the way it’s played,” he said with a smile. 

“So what are your three wishes?”

Thomas was grateful Richard couldn’t see him grinning like a fool as he answered. 

“That I’ll see you three times in the year.”

He thought maybe Richard was smiling on the other end, for he took a minute to answer, and his voice had something sunny in it—warm and infectious. 

“If we put our heads together, we might find a way…”

Thomas let himself believe—just for a moment—that they really might manage it. 

“What about you?” 

“I have a question on the rules.” Matter-of-fact, but Thomas figured he was teasing, somehow. 

“Go on.”

“If I wish for the same thing as you, does that mean we’re putting in for six altogether, or have we concentrated it all into three double-wishes?”

And who else would think to ask it? 

“Probably depends on the wording…” he played along. 

He’d been so sorry they couldn’t see each other over the holidays, but just now he couldn’t be anything but completely content.

He’d found something beautiful, and he’d hold on to it, this time. 

“You’re right,” Richard said. “We have to make sure they match, or we won’t see the effects…”

Thomas laughed. “Of the double-wish, you mean?”

“Of the _three_ double-wishes, Thomas...” That smile in his voice, making Thomas warm to his toes. 

He’d make them come true, all of them. 

* * *

**December 31, 1928**

“You don’t have to drink it…” Richard murmured as Thomas pulled a face.

Sarah Ellis’s punch was too tart for Thomas’s liking...he supposed it was the sort of thing families grew a taste for. Like the pies his own mother had always made, with the crust that always collapsed into a doughy sort of crumble upon being sliced...Thomas didn’t think Mrs. Patmore could manage to create quite an effect if she tried. 

“I’m _going_ to drink it,” he whispered back, taking another determined sip. Richard shook his head with a smile. 

“They already like you very much,” he said. 

“Which is why I’m going to drink it.”

The Ellises had welcomed him without hesitation, all of them: from Richard’s parents, to the in-laws, to the tiniest Ellis niece—who called Thomas “Mr. Barrel” and hung off his arm like a monkey. Not a single snide comment between them, all night. Never in Thomas’s life…

He’d do whatever they asked of him. If ever anyone had earned his loyalty, it was them. 

“I love you.” Richard squeezed his hand. Thomas leaned into his side.

_Especially this one..._

“I love you, too.” 

* * *

**December 31, 1929**

“I’ll be in the village—probably all my life,” Miss Baxter said. “We both of us feel at home here. And I’m not even leaving my position just yet.”

“But you will,” Thomas said, looking down at his shoes and feeling somehow as if he were five years old again. It was probably the standing outside a church that was doing it...how many times had his mother tore him out of his seat in the pews for causing a stir? 

He’d stood at the doors and wondered if services would _ever_ end...and they always did, but he always doubted. 

Someone should have told him that was the easiest part of life. 

“Don’t pout…” Miss Baxter said. 

“I’m not!” Even though he was, and she knew it. Which wasn’t fair, of course it wasn’t...it was her day, and she’d asked him to help her with one of the most important parts. 

It didn’t mean it was going to be easy for him. 

“I’m happier for you than anyone,” he insisted. “Which astounds me, because I never thought I’d think anyone deserved to be stuck with Mr. Molesley...but then, I suppose there’s plenty who say the same about me.”

Miss Baxter smiled. “Then you can all be wrong together.”

She looked at the church doors. 

“Is Mr. Ellis inside?”

“He is.” Miraculously, and much to the relief of Thomas’s melancholy. 

It was going to be the start of a new decade—Miss Baxter had wanted to start her marriage just as Lady Edith had, with the ringing in of something new...she thought it quite romantic. The whole thing made Thomas feel existentially quesy, but it wasn’t for him to decide.

“I’m quite nervous…” he admitted, more the church door knockers than Miss Baxter. 

God, was he going to have to start calling her Mrs. Molesley?

“ _You’re_ nervous?” Baxter said with a laugh. “You’re not the one who looks ridiculous…”

“You look beautiful,” Thomas said, because it was true. Baxter blinked rather quickly, taking a shaking breath. 

“Don’t start crying, Miss Baxter!” he said, feeling his own eyes stinging. 

“I’m not!” she said, though her eyes were red. “I’m not... _you’re_ crying!”

“No!” Thomas turned away. “I’m _not_.”

He was—sort of. Almost. _Hardly._

He’d be fine. 

The church bells rang out ten o’clock, and Thomas took a bracing breath. 

“Right—it’s time.” He faced her. “Ready?”

She grinned, holding out her arm. 

“I’m ready. Are you?”

And though it was hard to be sure about these sort of things, Thomas supposed that he was ready, after all. 


End file.
